Egypt’s president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has overseen a clampdown on the press since Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in 2013.
Photograph: Reuters

Egypt is facing international condemnation for a serious attack on press freedoms after a military prosecutor charged one of the country’s foremost investigative journalists with distributing false information.

Hossam Bahgat – a contributor to the independent news website Mada Masr and founder of human rights group the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) – was arrested on Sunday. Mada Masr said the 37-year-old had been charged with “publishing false news that harms national interests and disseminating information that disturbs public peace”. He is to be held for four days.

News of the arrest came just days after protests during the visit to London by President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who has overseen the widespread curtailing of the Egyptian press since former president Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in 2013. Objections to Sisi’s red-carpet reception focused on mass killings, the imprisonment of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and human rights abuses.

“This is a bellwether moment for Egypt,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Continuing to hold Hossam Bahgat or putting him on trial would be a definitive signal that al-Sisi and his government have no interest in rolling back the repression of the past two years.”

Negad al-Borai, a lawyer requested by Bahgat, said the arrest was related to an article he wrote in October about the trial of military officers accused of a coup attempt. His detention order can be renewed indefinitely and more charges can be issued. Mahmoud Abou Zeid, another journalist, has been in pre-trial detention for over two years.

“It is unknown where Bahgat is currently being detained or where his four-day detention will be, and … his family is trying to find out to deliver his medications,” lawyer Hassan El-Azhary told Ahram Online on Monday morning.

Bahgat received a summons at his home in Alexandria on Thursday. He arrived at military intelligence headquarters on Sunday morning. In accordance with standard procedure, he was not allowed to enter with his phone, or be accompanied by a lawyer.

In another development, Egyptian media reported the arrest on Sunday of businessman Salah Diab, the founder of al-Masry al-Youm newspaper, and his son, two days after prosecutors froze their assets along with other co-founders. Al-Ahram cited an anonymous security source as saying they were facing corruption charges.

Bahgat’s arrest has echoes of the case of three al-Jazeera journalists who were tried for helping a banned terrorist organisation. They were eventually given a presidential pardon and released in a case that focused international attention on Sisi’s crackdown.

Amnesty International described Bahgat’s arrest as part of a “ferocious onslaught against independent journalism and civil society” in Egypt. The move was also condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which called for Bahgat’s immediate release.

The journalist investigated many of the court cases dealing with corruption in the family of former president Hosni Mubarak, the release of jihadis by the Egyptian military following Mubarak’s ousting, and the trials of militant cells.

“One of his strengths is the ability to depend on solid sources: that’s what his reporting was based on,” said Lina Attalah, the editor of Mada Masr. “If he’s being charged with publishing false information that seems to be the antithesis of his practice.”

Bahgat writes a daily press review for Mada Masr as well as investigative pieces. On Friday and Saturday, he was critical of Egyptian outlets for what he described as their unquestioning reliance on government narratives over the Russian plane crash in Sinai on 31 October. There has been growing suspicion elsewhere that the Metrojet plane was brought down by a bomb planted at Sharm el-Sheikh airport

Bahgat founded EIPR in 2002 and remained its executive director until 2013. In August 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) honoured him “for upholding the personal freedoms of all Egyptians,” when he won HRW’S Alison Des Forges Award.

“The Egyptian military has already indicated its contempt for the role of an independent media with a series of arrests of journalists. This latest detention is a clear attempt to stifle reporting,” the CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator, Sherif Mansour, said. “The Egyptian authorities should release Hossam Bahgat immediately. The fact that he was questioned for so long without his lawyers present only heightens the outrage.”